Photo shows helicopter attacked in Kenya, not President Buhari’s chopper in Nigeria

“Thank God that the stoning of President Buhari's helicopter happened in the 'right' side of the country (sic)”, reads a tweet published on January 31, 2023.

Image

Screenshot showing the false post, taken on February 8, 2023

The same claim was also shared elsewhere on Twitter and on Facebook.

On January 30, 2023, Nigerian media reported that Buhari launched several government projects in Kano state. There was no mention of an attack.

But the same day, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) accused Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), of staging an attack on the president in Kano. This came after Tinubu claimed saboteurs were orchestrating Nigeria’s cash and fuel crises to foil the APC’s chances of winning the upcoming election.

Meanwhile, the government denied any attack on the president, saying that stone pelters in Kano had gotten into a fight with traffic police.

Nigerians head to the polls on February 25, 2023, to elect their next president.

The APC’s Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) are frontrunners among the 18 candidates in the race.

AFP Fact Check has debunked numerous false and misleading claims targeting the contenders.

Photo from Kenya

Using a reverse image search, AFP Fact Check traced the photo to several Kenyan news stories (here, here and here) published in April 2022.

According to the media, the image showed a damaged helicopter, which had been carrying Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga on April 1, 2022. Protesters reportedly pelted the chopper with stones while Odinga attended a burial in Uasin Gishu county in Kenya.

Odinga posted a statement about the incident on his official Facebook account: “In the event that took place at Kabenes in Uasin Gishu, youth attacked my plane, destroying the air shield with rocks that were clearly aimed at me.”

You can read AFP Fact Check's Nigeria election debunks here.